Coming Undone
by teacandles
Summary: Mercedes and Kurt are both holding tight to a rapidly deteriorating friendship, but at some point they're going to look at each other and ask, "Why are we even friends?" Fill for a prompt on LJ.


Author's Note: Something I wrote up for a prompt on the glee_angst_meme on LiveJournal this afternoon. The prompt was "Mercedes can't relate to Kurt's lack of religion. Kurt can't relate to Mercedes' faith. Mercedes never stands up for him when she hears people harassing him. Kurt has become more critical of her actions and behavior. Mercedes isn't all that bothered by Kurt's lack of civil rights. Kurt starts ditching her to hang around someone who does care. Sometimes, Mercedes only hears 'gay' when Kurt speaks. And sometimes, Kurt only sees 'black' when he looks at Mercedes. Mercedes and Kurt are both holding tight to a rapidly deteriorating friendship, but at some point they're going to look at each other and ask, 'Why are we even friends?'" which is where the summary comes from.

I had to do it. My muse wouldn't let it be. My first Glee fic to celebrate my overwhelming new obsession, and tonight's Mercedes and Kurt interaction made me feel better about this deteriorating relationship. Hope you like. It's short but I liked it too much to leave it where I probably would never find it again.

And special thanks to the anon who posted this prompt. I've been really down lately and this kinda helped. Writing's never helped before.

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It hit Mercedes like a ton of bricks when she arrived at school and saw a stranger in the face of her best friend. She knew their friendship wasn't built to last: they had both tried and yet they hadn't. Theirs was a house of cards built on uneven ground. It was only a matter of time before it all came crashing down.

Kurt didn't believe in God. He thought faith was nothing but a silly fantasy for the hopeless to cling to like a safety blanket. But for Mercedes, faith was comforting. Church was comforting. God was comforting. There was healing power in faith and she desperately wanted Kurt to see that, but he wouldn't let her in, no matter no much she pried. So she gave up. It was okay for friends to have differences in opinion, things they couldn't share. It was okay, even if it was such a huge part of her life. It was okay. They had so many other things.

But there was more to their tenuous friendship than that. Mercedes would never understand Kurt the way he wanted her to and somewhere, deep down, she knew it. She knew he wanted to appear strong, so she never said a thing when she saw his lithe frame smack against the hard metal of the hallway lockers. She didn't bat an eyelash when he snuck into the girl's bathroom time and again to scrub dumpster grime out of his colorful, colorful clothes. She didn't flinch or look his way or even feel the slow heat of anger rise in her belly when she heard "fag" or "homo" echo down the hall. She wanted to; oh god, she wanted to, but Kurt wanted desperately to fight his own battles. Or at least that's what he kept telling her-pushing her away whenever she tried to come to his defense, fighting her attempts to worm her way inside, pretending he wasn't hurt when she knew, knew, knew that there were only so many times a person could glue themselves back together-and they both knew that there was only so long the charade could continue, but they tried for each other's sake while slowly drifting apart. Mercedes became colder and more distant, losing herself in food and God, while Kurt's word grew more heated and scathing and his eyes turned ice cold.

She finally realized how far apart they'd grown when Blaine came into the picture. Blaine was so nice, so charming, so attractive and so flamingly gay that she couldn't ignore the twist in her gut whenever he opened his mouth or looked _that way_ at Kurt.

It wasn't fair.

He was too perfect and undoubtedly her replacement. But then, Kurt would never look at her the way she had once looked at him (how she still looked at him every now and again, if she was honest with herself). At first she thought that it had to be her dark skin, her full figure, something that was fundamentally wrong with her to keep Kurt's gaze from turning her way. Maybe if she had soft white skin and little blonde curls and a tight, flat stomach he would look at her. They were close, sure, but not close enough. Never close enough. And then he'd come out. Somewhere, she'd always known, but it still hurt. Still wrenched through her body like a knife. She'd never have a chance-not like Blaine.

And it hurt.

So no, she found it hard to care that Kurt would probably be a second-class citizen for life. She found it hard to care that he would probably never marry, or have kids, or even walk down the street hand in hand with his lover without a glare or a curse or something so much worse. She couldn't bring herself to care because she'd never be his bride, the mother of his children, the one holding his hand. And it hurt. It hurt even worse when she saw less and less of Kurt and more and more of KurtandBlaine and then neither one at all.

Sometimes, when she's sitting there with Kurt, she only hears "gay" spilling out of his mouth and she knows that sometimes, when Kurt looks at her, he only sees "black" and her soft rolls of skin. She knew that he could only see the great dark whale.

And when Kurt drops the bombshell that he's leaving for Dalton and abandoning the group when they sorely need them, it hurts so bad that she can barely breathe. She can only call out his name to his retreating back and wonder where it all went wrong. She wonders what happened to Kurt. She wonders what happened to her. And she wonders why she even cares.


End file.
